A Tryst with Thai – Part 1 (plus details on my first Thai cuisine masterclass!)

 

When I first changed from career woman to stay at home mom I went through a period in which I came to hate cooking. Cooking RDBS (roti-dal-bhat-subzi) became routine, the monthly budget was tighter with a single income that could not stretch to accommodate exotic ingredients.  But I had to cater three meals daily, and I wanted variety! One afternoon frustrated with another dinner waiting to be cooked, I postponed making the Rajma-Chaval I had planned and took my son down to the park, hoping to clear my head.

I arrived to find a furious debate underway amongst other mothers - about Mexican Tacos of all things!  While one insisted the bean stuffing in Tacos was made with baked beans another said it was made with Rajma. Recalling the delicious Tacos my sister in law made, I quickly rang her to clarify. It turned out that the stuffing could be either; Rajma when one had the time or baked beans as a quick alternative. It was a Eureka moment for me! Realizing I had Rajma all ready at home, I asked her the recipe and rushed home via the local grocery store (to pick up taco shells). Dinner that night was a resounding success. Tacos with the works brought a welcome change, did not put me out of pocket (not too much anyway) and most importantly, my son loved it. Watching him down THREE taco shells full of beans and salad was the highlight of the evening.  

The experience turned out to be epiphanic in the long run as well. I realised that thinking out of the box with ingredients I had to hand, made daily cooking more fun. And I found I didn’t need to break the bank catering unusual food. Cuisines around the world, have many ingredients in common, we’ve just never thought of it. And Thai cuisine, unlike what restaurants have us believe, needn’t be made with mushrooms, baby corn and other relatively more expensive ingredients. Thai cuisine is based on using what is fresh and in season and has a lot of ingredients in common with Indian cuisine so getting most things is easy and inexpensive.

 

I make my version of green curry with whatever vegetables I can find (white gourd, ridge gourd, French beans, turnip, cauliflower, carrots). Most exotic vegetables are greenhouse bred in any case. Local seasonal produce is far more delicious to cook and eat. And the fact that you will also ascribe to traditional food Indian food values that advise eating what is in season to keep the body healthy through the annual weather cycle in addition to getting quality at the best prices is an added bonus.  And Just like my Thai curry, other dishes like Soups, salads, stir fries and side dishes needn’t be composed of expensive lettuce and exotic vegetables - try a coconut milk soup or Grapefruit salad for example.

I feel like cooking from world cuisine is like being somewhere else, cooking something exciting and new, but from the comfort of your own kitchen. I still make my Mexican Tacos but have added a few delicious stuffings to my repertoire. And just after that I went through what my husband fondly calls a Thai High after I discovered Thai curry my friend Priya brought over a few years ago. I cooked Thai for a year, endlessly, researching from books and over the internet, until I had a full Thai spread down pat. And every year since I choose a cuisine and practice it through the year, culminating with a full meal on my birthday for friends and family. I can also now make a mean Italian spread, (because of which my husband refuses to go out to eat Italian), lay a delicious Mezze and am experimenting with Vietnamese now.

The key to cooking a good dish or meal from another cuisine is in truly understanding the elements of that cuisine. Once you have that ingrained, you will be able to cook just about anything. And once I began to think out of the box, I found I did not have to limit myself to my vegetable basket, my options were immediately multiplied by the number of ingredients I had in my spice rack, store cboard and refrigerator as well. I did not always get the exact ingredient I needed for a recipe. Using a substitute did sometimes mean a loss of authentic flavor. But I am not a puritan, I believe we’d still be grilling meat on a fire if we hadn’t used what we had to hand – Cuisine would simply never have evolved! 

Stereotyped as spicy, Thai Cuisine actually strives to achieve harmony between of the four basic flavours of hot, sour, salty and sweet and an occasional fifth, bitter. Evolving through the melding of Chinese, Indian, Malay, Portuguese and Dutch cuisines, contemporary Thai cuisine is a complex, vibrant showcase of an intricate medley of taste, texture and seasoning and is a colourful, aromatic, flavourful whirl of the senses. Thai cuisine is a rare example of fusion cuisine going right!

Thai took over as the new Chinese very early on in the culinary landscape of Mumbai and it is a love affair that is still raging. The latest fine dining restaurant KOH opening its doors to business a few months ago being testament to this fact (although I am still undecided on the restaurant, itself). Mumbai's taste buds have shown their natural affinity for the chilli, coconut, coriander and other ingredients that form the basis of Thai cooking but access to such exotica as Kaffir Lime, Thai brinjals and Pomelo at fine foods stores such as Nature’s Basket is evidence that the aromatic flavours of Thai cuisine have conquered Mumbai's palate and entered the home kitchen as well. And personally I LOVE that lemongrass has finally come into its own and has more interesting uses than simply in tea!

Watch for part 2 and 3 of my tryst with Thai cuisine, in the coming weeks, in which I will share the secrets of how to lay a delectable Thai table. 

THAI CUISINE MASTERCLASS

I am excited to share that I am conducting a Thai cuisine Master class at Nature’s Basket Lokhandwalla at 3 on Thursday the 30^th of Sept. This will comprise a whole meal of signature dishes she I have developed over years of cooking Thai food. On the menu is Pomelo salad and Pickled cucumber crackers, Thai inspired noodle soup, Green Thai green Curry w Lemongrass Fried rice, Thai chilli sauce and Kaffir lime scented coconut milk fruit salad plus oodles of cooking tips and insights on Thai ingredients, delicious samplings and discounts on select Thai products on offer. Be there if you love Thai food because I promise this will be delicious! 


Images courtesy Bharat Bhirangi and Mrigank Sharma.

Review of Ziya at the Oberoi, Mumbai

21 September 2011. After much thought and delibration, I am updating this post because it still continues to see a lot of hits. 

I want to share that Ziya is no longer on my list of Mumbai favourites. My most recent dining experience at Ziya was extremely disappointing. I tasted the new Gourmand Menu in its vegetarian and non vegetarian avatars and found it very lack lustre. The non vegetarian version is too seafood heavy and 2 courses had no salt - an inexcusible mistake for a restaurant of this calibre. The vegetarian menu is heavy on gimmicks but low on flavour and just not worth the money paid for it. And most of the courses were red. There was none of the play of color and flavour and texture in this new menu that the previous one had. To be fair there were some good things, like the ginger sorbet bollinger palate cleanser and the whole wheat spinach combination that one of the dishes came on. But not enough to correct the balance. Overall, it was very disappointing. Like the day of my previous meal, the restaurant was aware I was dining there (AND bringing along a MOST illustrious guest.) I also want to state that this meal was paid for in spite of their offering to host it. (All those people who worry about anonymous reviews, this is a classic example of what I say, a restaurant can brush up on service but if its serves dissapointing food, it will do so regardless of who is being served.) In fact it will take a lot of convincing to bring me back.

The Oberoi has always been one of my favourite places to dine out at in South Mumbai. Despite my high regard for it, however, I do not get to it often enough, living well on the other side of Mumbai as I do. But Ziya, their new restaurant had been on my radar, so being townside last weekend I took up their long standing invitation to dine there.

An interesting Amuse Bouche of Lassi and a Papad roll.

The Kebab Platter my companion ordered.

Tandoori Scottish Salmon also my companions choice - delicious! 

Since I was invited to dine at Ziya, I am not going to comment on the service but I believe that the consistency of food will stay the same no matter the premise of the review so I will focus on that.

A large part of the dining experience at Ziya is the ambience. Heavy on gold offset by cream, but in an entirely elegant way, the restaurant has a show kitchen that is particularly arresting on one side and a breathtaking, panoramic view of Marine Drive, on the other. Designed to accentuate an enriching dining experience without the overbearing  opulence a lot of ‘Royal cuisine’ restaurants use as a backdrop to lashings of cream and butter to justify their prices, Ziya showcases the signature "evolved cuisine" of Chef Vineet Bhatia, who, (as the menu at Ziya introduces him) is "the prodigal chef." This term of endearment stems from the Bhatias long relationship with the Oberoi. He worked as the chef at Kandahar with for five years before emigrating to the UK. Seventeen years later, he returned to render a contemporary Indian restaurant to replace Kandahar's antiquated north-west dining experience.

The menu at Ziya sidesteps typecasting the food as “fusion” or “nouvelle Indian”, suggesting diplomatically that “the light and imaginative dishes display a clever balance between innovation and an immense respect for the history of Indian cooking”. I have to admit here that I did translate this into marketing jargon to cover up something indefinable after reading the dishes on offer.

I was wrong!

I opted for the seven course Gourmand menu. I prefer to opt for a set or tasting menu when dining at a restaurant for the first time. Like the back cover of a book encapsulates the best of the book, a set menu showcases what a restaurant thinks is their best, allowing one to avoid wading through the larger menu, making wrong choices and generally messing up. And if the set menu appeals, one can come back to sample other things...

With Ziya, the Gourmand menu translates to an array of dishes presented in breathtaking detail to calculated to delight the eye as much as the palate; carefully arranged in stacks, towers and pictures, surrounded with artistic swirls of chutneys and raitaa, the colours and shapes make the food true to the Indian ethos of colour on the plate. And each plate set before you is a melange of not just colour but also flavour, texture and temperatures.  With Ziya, the Gourmand menu translates to an array of dishes that make you gasp, once at their appearance, again on tasting and a third time when you finish your serving of that fabulous dish!

Let me take you through my meal....

The Crisp roti wrapped prawns, for instance, sets crunchy roti wrapped prawns against little cubelets of Bloody Mary jelly, and a velvety tomato soup. It is a lovely plate, that promises many surprises for the palate. My only complaint is that while the waiters at Ziya adequately highlight the components of the course, they fail to tell me the order in which to eat it. I ended up trying the soup first, then the jelly and then the prawn as the components caught my eye, because, unfortunately the prawn had little flavour, and was more about the crispyness of the roti ‘noodles’ it was wrapped in. When I tried it in the right order, the prawn first, followed by the creamy tangy soup that washed away fried and seafoody flavours of the prawn and concluded with the spicy Jelly to cleanse my palate, the dish’s play on textures came through.

But the food at Ziya is not simply about throwing together contrasting textures. There are a lot of exciting tricks on the menu, such as the playing of varying temperatures to surprise the mouth that followed in the next course, a Warm Wild-Mushroom khichdi came topped with a swirl of Makhani ice cream. The ‘ice cream’ of frozen butter chicken gravy, sat on top of a bed of rice separated by a crunchy cracker. Different textures and flavours, delighted the mouth but the warm khichdi that held to its savoury heals perfectly complemented the makhani ice cream that left a slow burn of heat in its cold wake down the throat!

The seductive tone of the meal progressed, with a Varqi 25 carat black spiced Chicken Tikka carefully laid on a bed of saffron upma, with the subtly sweet, barely spicy chicken garnished with pure gold leaf contrasting the pillowy seductively scented saffron upma perfectly in all aspects from colours to textures and flavours. It is a dish that I will be a long time in forgetting because it will take a lot to beat it.

I thought I had claimed that too soon with the serving of the next course, the Grilled Chilli and Curry Leaf Lobster that followed took the oomph factor of the meal a few too many notches higher, its flame colors contrasted by a bright green bed of broccoli khichdi surrounded by a moat of flame Lobster jus, the whole dusted at the table with spiced cocoa powder. But the lobster, like the prawn we had earlier, wasn't succulent or flavourful enough with not a hint of chilli or curry leaf in sight. A classic case of looks alone do not a great dish make!

Thankfully the fifth course, a palate cleanser, of a champagne sorbet in which a scoop of ice shavings were luxuriously smothered in Moët et Chandon made up for the a lavish letdown of the lobster, washing away the disappointment in a sweep of icy bubbles.

 

The sixth course of Smoked Tandoori Lamb Chops, silken potato mash, lamb samosa, spiced lamb and mint jus and lemon grass foam arrived at the table with a considerably less fanfare than the Lobster, but made up for its low key appearance with layer upon layer of flavour! The mildly spiced lamb chops were perfectly cooked. The meat separating almost lovingly from the bone, the silk-smooth saffron scented mashed potatoes offering ample contrast in texture to the crispy minced-lamb samosa that was very cleverly slightly spicier than the meat. A perfect bite of a dish that I could not get enough of! 

For dessert (and here is where being a food writer helps) I opted for a Chocolate Palate, a platter of several chocolate concoctions including a white chocolate kulfi and hazelnut brownies, Chocomosa (bitter chocolate-filled samosas) and rose-flavored ice cream and a Paan Panna Cotta. And at the behest of my dining companion, a Coffee ice cream. Most of the chocolate offerings were banal, but the Coffee ice cream was delicious albeit not the best choice for dessert after the sumptuous meal I had just finished. The Chocolate Samosa, was an outstanding interpretation of a classic combination of crisp pastry and chocolate, right up there with detectibles such as churros con chocolate. The other exception was the Paan Panna Cotta, subtly redolent of Paan, a bowl full of just that would have made a far better sweet finale to the meal in my opinion.

I rarely dine out on Indian food (of the Mughlai, Punjabi ilk, that is, although I am all for smaller places that do other cuisines). I find the fare at this sort of restaurant too heavy. Knowing its popularity I am willing to admit that this might simply be because it does not meet my personal palate references. But the Indian Palate is changing. A host of international cooking shows, a flourishing travel industry and fabulous cookbooks showcasing the world on a plate are shaping the city's collective palate. Indian food cannot afford to remain mired in cream, butter and heavy upholstery. It needs to move forward and take its place in more contemporary avatars while respecting tradition. And Ziya, quite frankly, has proven superlative in delivering on this. Granted, the seafood options can be improved upon,  but the negatives are far outweighed by the positives and I will certainly be back to discover more !

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GYAN

Located at the Oberoi, Ziya is open for lunch and dinner. A meal for two costs approximately Rs 4,500 without alcohol; the seven-course gourmand meal for two is priced at Rs 7,000 without alcohol.

Lasagna with Love for Rohan

 

 

When I decided to cook a special birthday dinner for my nephew Rohan just before I left for Kerala, I ambitiously but rather worriedly planned Lasagna. I had a full day that day;reviewing a restaurant at lunch, followed by a couple of meetings before I could get home to work. And Lasagna from scratch was an epic recipe, I had not made in years. I made Lasagna entirely out of my head based on tasting it once in a little Bagni in Italy a few weeks after I married. With no Pasta machine, it took me two days to get the whole thing done using a rolling pin to make the pasta, slow cooking sauce, but it was worht it because my husband still sings praises of it! However the sheer amount of time it took, always detered me from making it again and while I made many lasagnas with ready pasta sheets they were neve quite the same. It was becoming a thing of fantasy. But I was determined to make a special dinner for Rohan and this was a signature dish. 

What made it easier and very special was the entire Ghildiyal Family decided to pitch in. Shekhar who has been making pasta at home of late, did the Pasta sheets using my technique of flavouring them with pepper and herbs, helped by Rohan and 'assisted' by Aman (who kept stealing peices of pasta to make farfale and odd shaped bits of pasta). While I made the sauces in the kitchen. i usually do a tomato sauce but because Rohan loves mushrooms, I was going to do a Mushroom sauce this time. I also did a Minestrone soup and Baked corn on the side. So a few hours later we sat down to dinner and it was the best Lasagna in the world; whisper-thin sheets of fresh oregano flavoured egg pasta intersecting earthy mushroom sauce and warm, oozy, cheesy bechemel with oodles of love stirred in....

Now I COULD tell you that this is the only lasagna recipe worth making and that once you have this lasagna, you will never accept anything less. But you might not believe me. So give it a turn (of the pasta machine) and tell me I am wrong. I certainly will never make a Lasagna with ready sheets ever again. Be warned, however, this is not a Lasagna for the faint-hearted. Making it requires commitment, patience - and TIME (which is probably why I made it after years) and plenty of it. Although, you could shorten cooking time by a few hours, that's right. Hours. If you used Pasta sheets. But then you might as well order in Lasagna!

So while this thing IS a weekend project if there ever was one, we go everyone involved around here the good news is that it makes a lot, and if it does not get wiped out, you might be able to freeze some!
The best Mushroom Lasagna in the world (Time taken: 1 hour plus baking time, Serves: 4)
Notes: You need to pass the pasta sheets through a pasta machine a few times to achieve the most thin and delicate sheets of pasta possible - if you don't have a pasta machine a rolling pin will do, (it did for me all these years) but the results are not quite the same. But really fresh pasta with a rolling pin work better than ready pasta any day so... Also fresh pasta means you can skip the pre-boil step just use a little more sauce. Also remeber proper seasoning is important throughout this recipe, if you undersalt it is going to taste flat and this is one of those recipes you can't correct later.


Thin Oregano flavoured homemade pasta sheets layered with peppery mushroom filling cheese and Bechemel sauce.

Ingredients
For the Pasta sheets
250 g maida
½ tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
2 eggs

For the Mushroom filling
1/3 c oil
1/2 c garlic, finely chopped
1/2 c onion, finely chopped
1/2 c carrot
1/2 c celery
1 kg mushrooms washed, coarsely chopped
Salt to taste
2 tbsp black pepper or 1/3 cup pickled green peppercornscrushed coarsely
Corn flor or Maida (to thicken if required)

For White/Bechemel sauce
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp plain flour
2 c milk
4 tbsp Parmiggiano cheese, finely grated
Salt to taste

To assemble
1 large or 2 small baking dishes
250 g mozzarella cheese grated

Method
For the Pasta sheets - In a bowl mix maida, oregano, salt and pepper together. Add oil and mix until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add eggs and knead in as well as possible. Only if required, add cold water kneading well to form smooth dough. Divide into 5 portions and roll out as thin as possible, trim to the shape and size of your container and laying out to dry for about 10 mins. (To store bake on a tava on both sides for a couple of minutes or until little brown spots appear, roll up separated by foil sheets and freeze.)

For the Mushroom filling - in a large vessel, heat oil. Add garlic, onion, carrot and celery. Sautee on a low flame so the vegetables soften and cook but do not brown. Add mushrooms and cook untill done. If the mushrooms let off too much water and it looks like they will not dry out, dissolve 1 tbsp of cornflour or Maida in a little water and add to mushrooms. Allow to cool.

For White/Bechemel sauce - Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat until foaming. Add flour. Stir in and cook, continuing to stir, for 1 to 2 minutes or until mixture bubbles. Remove from heat and slowly add milk, whisking constantly, until mixture is smooth. Return to heat. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 10 to 12 minutes or until sauce comes to the boil, thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese and salt.

To assemble – spread a little mushroom filling on the base of the baking dish. Lay a pasta sheet on top. Spoon over and spread a little more mushroom filling over the pasta sheet. Scatter grated cheese. Repeat pasta layer, spread a layer of bechemel sauce over, cover with a layer of pasta. Repeat untill you have finished saving the thinest pasta sheet for the top, spread last sheet over with white sauce, scatter with cheese and grill or bake in the oven until cheese is melted and top layer is browned. Serve hot!

Beautiful cakes from Le 15 Patiserrie for a sweet Finale! Mine was a Raspberry tart (that, Aman gobbled three pieces of) and Rohan's was a Chocolate Layer bit of deliciousness (that I gobbled three pieces of)! 

Notes to myself - from Kerala's backwaters...

Banana fritters and Kerala coffee on deck. 

 

 

The full dinner spread...

 Fried Karimeen

Breakfast! 

Once more I must apologise, for my silence. It has been a long hard month of trying to get my manuscript done. Highs, as I got closer to my goal, lows as friends who I wanted to feature could not come through with their recipes. Stress of things requiring attention (like this blog) and rushes of adrenalin from sleepless nights of intense writing. And then my other baby needed attention, Masalla Trails, the food tours I intend to launch soon, in partnership with my sister needed to be finalised.

So at the very last moment of delivering one project I went off to Kerala to start another! The day I landed, I resisted the temptation to explore the charms of Fort Cochin to finish up and send of my manuscript. The next morning we were off hurtling toward Thekkady,inspecting property after property, loving some rejecting others, and driving on to Kumarakom, for our night on the houseboat.

And suddenly, I looked around, and I was gently bobbing around on a houseboat in kerela, reading, nibbling on banana fritters, sipping coffee as the sun melted into the backwaters. Chef Venugopal clattering about in the galley making dinner he announced he would serve "Yat yeight Dirty !" And as that house boat drifted on the tide, I was forced to take a breath, smell the wet air and lose myself in the water hyacinth garnished backwaters of Kerala.

Dinner as promised was served at Eight thirty. And what a meal it was, a perfect bite of kerela, khozi roast, thoran, a delectable fried karela dish, long beans sauteed with onions and gleaming with oil, a side of spicy fried karimeen freshly caught. We ate like we were starved and ended with hot raisin studded payasam for a sweet finale even as houseboats twinkled at us from accross the water and palm trees sent whispers of welcome our way.

I slept better that night than I had in ages and woke to the smell of hot Kerala style coffee and a garden of Lotus blossoms outside our window. We came out to a breakfast of idli Sambhar, Chutney and butter kissed fluffy dosas rounded of with more coffee and the sweetest pineapple I had eaten in the longest time. It was a lovely moment taken out from the rat race of life, I just wish it could have been longer!

VIRTUAL BIRTHDAY POTLUCK WEEK. - What will you cook for me on my birthday?

As a child for me (and most people) birthdays meant a big party and lots of presents, a line of thought that continued into adulthood. The 34th year of my life has been one filled with a fair amount of sadness and loss. Of people and an era of the person I used to be. I know I have been very melancholy everywhere, and on this blog as well, as a result. Which is why more than ever, I wanted to cook up a storm for friends this year. But when my internet went off last week, it kind of spoilt my schedule for my book and I ended up having to defer my plans to next week (maybe).


Every year I gather as many people I love as I can fit into my house and cook up a huge meal of one particular cuisine; Thai, Chinese, Mexican Lebanese, cooking was never a chore, I loved immersing myself in it. And it brought the people I loved closer. I love to plan feasts for food and friends, putting together an interesting bunch of people, planning a menu, and getting them all together around a table laden with food. Soon warmth flows through the room, laughter fills the air and I sit back, sip a robust red wine or cuddle a rum and coke and savour the chemistry happening around me; as friendships are strengthened or forged and people reach out and touch each other’s lives.

And then I realised I don’t need to postpone celebrating my birthday.

So you are all invited to my VIRTUAL BIRTHDAY POTLUCK WEEK.

Help me celebrate my birthday by leaving a comment on this post with what you would cook (or serve) me on my birthday. (And if you feel like leaving recipes, I will be more than happy so I have lots of yummy things to make if and when I do have a real party or to make the coming year delicious!)

I can just see my husband rolling his eyes at this one!

Look forward to seeing you online through this week!

Love,
Rushina